島原殉教地
17世紀前半にこの場所で数多くの信徒が殉教したことから、ローマ教皇庁はこの海岸を公式巡礼地に認定しています。捕まって島原城の牢に入れられたキリシタンたちのうち、16人が指を切り落とされて小舟に乗せられ、棄教しないと首の周りに石を巻いて有明海に沈めると迫られました。全員が棄教を拒否し、溺死させられました。
キリシタン武士パウロ内堀作右衛門は、かつて島原を治めていたキリシタン大名、有馬晴信（1567-1612）の家臣でした。彼は３人の息子が海に沈められるのを見せられ、自身も雲仙岳で熱湯に浸けられて処刑されました。パウロと3人の息子は、2008年11月、ローマ教皇ベネディクト16世によって列福された188人の日本人殉教者に数えられています。
一部の歴史家によると、かつてこの海岸の向かい側には元商人のポルトガル人宣教師ルイス・アルメイダが教会を建てた島がありました。この島は、おそらく1792年の島原大変によって消滅しました。この災害では、普賢岳の噴火に誘発された巨大地震が眉山の崩落と大津波を引き起こし、周辺地域の地形を一変させました。
Shimabara Martyrdom Site
The Vatican has designated this beach as an official pilgrimage site because of a mass martyrdom that took place here in the first half of the seventeenth century. Sixteen people from a larger group of Christians that had been captured and held in Shimabara Castle had their fingers cut off and were placed in a small boat. They were then told they would be tossed into the Ariake Sea with stones around their necks unless they renounced Christ. They all refused and were drowned.
Paolo Uchibori Sakuemon, a Christian samurai who had been a retainer of Arima Harunobu (1567–1612), the Christian daimyo who had previously run Shimabara, was forced to watch his three sons die this way before he was executed by being dunked into boiling water on Mt. Unzen. Paolo and his three sons were among the 188 Japanese martyrs beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2008.
According to some historians, there was once an island opposite the beach with a church built by Luis de Almeida, a Portuguese merchant who became a missionary. The island has disappeared, probably as a result of the Shimabara Catastrophe of 1792. This was a massive seismic event caused by the eruption of Mt. Fugen, which triggered the collapse of Mt. Maruyama and generated a huge tsunami, transforming the local topography.
